Peacekeeping on the Plains: Army Operations in Bleeding Kansas
The useage of the army to conduct police and peacekeeping duties in the newly formed Kansas and Nebraska territories, A meticulous analysis of facts and records, regarding the true story of human greed, desperation, ruthlessness, and military efforts to contain potential riots

About six miles south of Trading Post, where the Marais de Cygnes engagement had occurred, the brigades of Colonel Frederick W. Benteen and Colonel John F. Phillips, of Major General Alfred Pleasonton's Provisional Cavalry Division, overtook the Confederates as they were crossing Mine Creek.

These Rebels, stalled by their wagons crossing the ford, had formed a line on the north side of Mine Creek.

The Federals, although outnumbered, commenced the attack as additional troops from Pleasonton's command arrived during the fight.

They soon surrounded the Rebels, resulting in the capture of about 600 men and two generals, Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke and Brigadier General William L. Cabell. Having lost this many men, Price's army was doomed.

Retreat to friendly territory was the only recourse.

Result(s): Union victory

Location: Linn County

Campaign: Price's Missouri Expedition (1864)

Date(s): October 25, 1864

Principal Commanders: General Alfred Pleasonton [US]; Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke and Major General James F. Fagan [CS]

Bad Blood: The Border War That Triggered the Civil War
In the years leading up to the Civil War, a bloody conflict between slaveholders and abolitionists focused the nation's eyes on the state of Missouri and the territory of Kansas. Told through the actual words of slave owners, free-staters, border ruffians, and politicians, Bad Blood presents the complex morality, differing values, and life-and-death decisions faced by those who lived on the Missouri-Kansas border

Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border
The western front was the scene of some of that conflict's bloodiest and most barbaric encounters as Union raiders and Confederate guerrillas pursued each other from farm to farm with equal disregard for civilian casualties

Bloody Dawn: The Story of the Lawrence Massacre
Kansas was a Hotbed for abolitionists and Lawrence was known as the center. For years under the guise of Freedom, abolitionists, known as Jayhawkers and Redlegs crossed the border into Missouri to murder, loot, and plunder. Quantrill raided Lawrence, Kansas killing nearly 200 men

Autobiography of Samuel S. Hildebrand
Figures such as Quantrill and Anderson are better known today, Sam Hildebrand was an equally notorious Missouri bushwhacker in the southeast region of Missouri. Operating with a small group of followers, Hildebrand and his rifle "Kill-Devil" were a terror to local Unionist civilians

Massacre at Baxter Springs
The true-life adventures of a cavalry trooper who finds himself in the middle of a guerilla war. Caught between Quantrill's guerillas and James Blunt, Union general who unwittingly leads his cavalry into a deadly ambush. The narrative describing the battle is based on previously unpublished Wisconsin archival material.

The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns
Here is the saga of celebrated generals and ordinary soldiers, a heroic and transcendent president and a country that had to divide itself in two in order to become one